


Doorways of the Mind

by jujubiest



Category: Beyond The Edge (2018)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Canon Autistic Character, Ending Fix, Evil Plans, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Heist, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Lost Time, Memory Loss, Possession, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Spoilers, Superpowers, Team as Family, Telepathic Bond, Unnamed Canon Characters - Freeform, Various OCs as needed - Freeform, Whump, bad fathers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: I watched Beyond the Edge (2018) last night and I was so captivated by the main characters and the whole premise (and so frustrated by the ending, if I'm honest) that I just had to write something for it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of a fandom around the movie, at least not that I can find. But that's never stopped me before!Note that in the subtitles on both Amazon and Showtime, the characters' names use standard English spellings for the way they're pronounced in the film (i.e. Michael, Veronica, Eric, Tony, Alex, etc.) but on the IMDB page, they're listed as Maykl, Veronika, Erik, Toni, Aleks. I have chosen to go with the IMDB page spellings, as that's generally more reliable (sadly) than captions.ADDITIONAL NOTES AT THE END CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE.
Relationships: Gordon & Maykl, Maykl/Veronika





	1. The Man Who Holds Fire In His Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Beyond the Edge (2018) last night and I was so captivated by the main characters and the whole premise (and so frustrated by the ending, if I'm honest) that I just had to write something for it. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much of a fandom around the movie, at least not that I can find. But that's never stopped me before!
> 
> Note that in the subtitles on both Amazon and Showtime, the characters' names use standard English spellings for the way they're pronounced in the film (i.e. Michael, Veronica, Eric, Tony, Alex, etc.) but on the IMDB page, they're listed as Maykl, Veronika, Erik, Toni, Aleks. I have chosen to go with the IMDB page spellings, as that's generally more reliable (sadly) than captions.
> 
> ADDITIONAL NOTES AT THE END CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE.

Gordon's offer, delivered via Aleks, isn't really an offer, of course. Maykl shouldn't be surprised by now, but he still is, and worse...it still hurts. But he's gotten this far in life on compartmentalization and oversimplification, so. Yes, he really meant to make a change. Yes, he meant to make it up to Veronika, that half-assed, quippy remark about telling her lies. He meant to apologize and do right by his friends. Maybe build something real and lasting around him, for once. But now...now there's no time. So he'll survive this like he survives everything: by breaking down each obstacle thrown in his path into its simplest truths, and coming up with a plan.

Truth: He loves these people, whether that makes total sense to him or not.

Truth: There is a man who holds fire in his hands standing a few feet away, only waiting for Aleks's word to strike.

Truth: None of these people he loves have the kind of power or control to take such a man on and come out unscathed.

Truth: His father is a ruthless bastard who will not hesitate to give Aleks the order to kill, if he thinks that's the only way to get what he wants.

Truth: What his father really wants...is Maykl. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know _why_. It just is.

So for the second time in barely twice as many days, Maykl does something exceedingly un-Maykl-like. He steps forward, putting himself between his friends and the danger he inadvertently brought them into. He looks his father's messenger in the eye.

"I'll go with you," he says. "But let the rest of them go. Please."

Aleks smiles. He nods at someone in Maykl's periphery, but not in the direction of the man who holds fire.

Maykl doesn't have time, before darkness drags him down, to wonder if his father will really let his friends go free.

And when his eyes open, the person staring out of them doesn't remember who those friends are, or why he wanted so desperately to save them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a very short prologue to post, but I'm still working on chapter one and just needed to shove something into the world with my feelings about this movie all wrapped up in it. I feel like the tonal shift in the ending was too jarring to make sense unless something else is at play. And since this is a world with superpowers, it made sense to me that Maykl would only have gone back to his dad and left his friends behind if he was being controlled or coerced in some way. So that's where I'm going with this. Maykl is being controlled, but by whom? And will his friends realize that's what is going on?


	2. The Liar and the Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maykl wakes up in an unfamiliar place, unsure of how much time has passed. Veronika plans her first heist without Maykl's help.

Veronika tries to move on with her life. _Tries_ being the operative word, because she has nothing to build on and no materials to start with. She can't go home, where everyone knows her power and wants to own her, use her. She can't get a job, because too many people are still looking for her, and the papers she has won't hold up under any real scrutiny. She can't retreat back into her mind. Every time she tries, it's like there's something pulling at her, refusing to leave her there to dissolve into color and memory and sound, painlessly.

That something has earnest brown eyes and a lying mouth, and she hates him, _hates_ him for dragging her back out into the world and then leaving her there to deal with its ugliness alone.

Maykl is gone. He left them standing on that beach without a backward glance at her, or at any of them. He said trust me, and she did, and then he didn't even toss a goodbye over his shoulder when he walked away. So that's another thing she doesn't have.

But she supposes she has Toni, and Erik, and Kevin. Leon, too. Even if they're all ridiculous man-children who can't accept the truth she knows. Leon keeps insisting "Mayki" will come back as soon as his father is done with him. Toni hopes. He hopes so hard it hurts to watch. He never says so, but she can see it on his face. Erik is the only one who sort of agrees with her, but Kevin withdraws into himself if anyone says the truth out loud, so they both stay quiet.

Leon didn't have to watch Maykl's retreating back, or feel the pain of the way he didn't even pause when she screamed his name. When she _begged_ him to turn around, to explain, to say _something._

Leon doesn't know--and Toni, Erik, and Kevin don't either, and never will--that he found a way to shut her out completely, even after basically taking her for a run through his mind.

After that, she should have been able to reach him anywhere, if she wanted to. But she couldn't. She _can't._

Maykl is gone, and he is never coming back. And Veronika hates him for it.

~

If someone were to ask Maykl what it felt like to be trapped in his own mind for three months, he would have opened his mouth to tell them, and started screaming.

He remembers the beach so clearly. Remembers handing bags full of money over to Aleks. Remembers the sinking feeling of dread and the flash of pain when he realized Gordon had betrayed him, yet again.

He remembers prying himself away from all his notions of turning over a new leaf, so that he could give himself up and save his friends without his composure breaking.

And he remembers the way Aleks smiled just before something heavy, dark, and _total_ settled over him, pressing him down, down, down where no one could hear him cry out.

Then...nothing. White walls and silence, for what seemed like an endless stretch of time.

When he wakes up—or is released—at last, he’s in different clothes and his mind is a buzzing blank for several terrifying minutes. The white room was all he could see for so long, it’s almost like his eyes have forgotten how to see anything else.

But eventually, other sensations make themselves known, and color bleeds back into his world.

His hands are tied painfully tight behind his back, securing him to a wooden beam, and there's a throbbing in his head and a sticky, itchy line down his temple that tells him he's been hit hard enough to bleed into the collar of his shirt.

His father is across the room, in similar condition. He smiles weakly when he sees that Maykl is awake.

"Good morning," he says in his soft, always-slightly-mocking voice. "I thought you were going to sleep the day away."

"Ha," Maykl groans without enthusiasm. "What the hell have you gotten me into this time? And where is Veronika and my other friends?"

Gordon looks puzzled. Then concerned. Both expressions seem genuine, but Maykl knows better than to fully trust them.

"Maykl...I'm as in the dark about all of this as you. I just woke up here a few minutes ago, like this. As for friends, I wasn't aware you had such a thing."

Maykl glares, refusing to rise to that particular bait. If he doesn't have any friends, it's Gordon's fault, but that's an old fight he's never going to win. Right now, he needs to focus on getting out of this particular mess...and getting back to Veronika as soon as possible.

"What did you tell Aleks to do with them?" He asks, his voice strained as he twists and pulls against his restraints, trying to loosen them as much as possible. There's a pit of dread in his stomach, as familiar as it is unwelcome. It's what he felt the first--and the last--time he asked his father when Mama was coming home. It's what he felt when he heard that Veronika had retreated into her mind and been in a coma for two days.

He feels it now as he watches the confusion on his father's face dissolve into fear.

"Aleks?" He whispers. "Maykl. How do you know that name?"

~

Veronika plans her first heist out of necessity, ignoring Erik's skeptical smirk and Toni's uncertain gaze the entire time. Kevin has been withdrawing further and further into himself, and nothing she or anyone else does seems to help him at all. And she needs to help him, because somewhere between all the games and loss, these people became her family.

And right now, a member of her family is in so much pain he can't eat or sleep. So she has to do something.

The plan is simple enough, she thinks. Break into Kevin's old home at the clinic, steal his records, get out before anyone knows what's happening. From there, she hopes they can figure out what he needs to feel better.

Kevin can’t help them with his ability this time, and they’re all still trying not to feel the loss and wrongness of doing this without Maykl, confident and at ease, calling the shots. Veronika shoves those thoughts as far away as they will go and decides she will go in first, to scope out their security.

“You’re crazy,” Erik says. “No way you can pass for a nurse, they’ll find you out in seconds.”

“I’m not going in as a nurse,” Veronika says, shoving through one of the duffle bags in Leon’s “office,” looking for her old clothes.

“So you’re going in as a patient? That’s even worse!” Erik throws up his hands.

“Why?” Veronika says, grinning at him over her shoulder, hoping it doesn’t look as fragile as she feels. “Do I not look depressed?”

“No, you do,” Erik relents. “But then they might not let you out again.”

“That’s why you and Toni are going to be on the outside. I’ll get in, scope out their security measures, and transmit the thoughts back to you both. Then I need both of you to come in during visiting hours, get the records, and liberate me and those records. Got it?”

Erik looks nervous. “Sure...but...what if we screw it up? We’re not...” he trails off, but she knows he was about to say _we’re not like Maykl._

Maykl, who was not special, but who could get in and out of trouble so easily it was almost like he _did_ have a gift.

Veronika scowls at him.

“We were us before he ever came along, Erik,” she says, hoping her anger will sound like emphasis and make them both believe it. “We never needed him to be special.”

Erik looks uncertain, and she sighs, dropping the scowl and the attitude with it. She feels two hundred years old, and like she hasn’t slept for most of that time. Plopping down onto one of the seats, she tries to muster a smile, some sincerity, some _faith_ from a long-empty reservoir at the center of herself.

“Do you read comic books, Erik?” She asks. She had done, in her later teens. Before her reality made the fantasy no longer quite the escape it was meant to be. He nods.

“Good. You remember Major Thunder, right?”

“Not my favorite, but yes.”

“Right. Well you could argue that Major Thunder became a hero because of Plague Doctor, because of what he did. But that doesn’t mean you would give Plague Doctor _credit_ for Major Thunder’s power or his spirit, right? And no one would ever say that Major Thunder _needs_ Plague Doctor. You know why?”

“No, why.” He asks, still looking very glum. She gives him an affectionate nudge.

“Because. Plague Doctor is just Major Thunder’s origin story. The power to do something was always there. Plague Doctor was just the bad thing that happened that made Major Thunder decide to do it.”

Erik nods, but his eyes are still sad. The moral of the story hangs unspoken between them, crystallized in the cold winter air.

_Maykl was our bad thing._

_~_

Veronika gets admitted for short-term observation with a worrying lack of fuss and questions. The facility is one for both inpatient and outpatient care, and the inpatient wing is slightly less terrifying than her imagination had cooked up. It’s clean and plain, white walls everywhere, clothes with no long ropy bits, furniture with no sharp edges. She’s shown to a room that looks a lot like a college dorm, and searched by a sheepish nurse for anything pointy before she’s given a set of hospital clothes and ushered into the common area.

She tries to ignore her discomfort in favor of examining the security protocols she can see. It’s a voluntary facility— _except for Kevin,_ she thinks with gritted teeth—so there aren’t tons of guards around. There are lots of orderlies, a metal detector at the main entrance, and bars on the windows. All easy enough to get around with Toni and Erik in play.

Still. It would be easier if they had someone who could order people around.

She spends an uneventful day answering uncomfortable questions with half-truths, putting together a puzzle with one of the other inpatients.

When it’s time for lights out, Veronika sits up in bed and fixes her open eyes on the blank wall, not wanting to risk falling asleep in her garden. That’s how she thinks of it...a garden, even though it’s dark and wild and not cultivated at all.

She takes a deep breath, and another, and she’s there. Surrounded by water and stone, foliage and broken remnants of her childhood bedroom, blue-green light filtering down from an unseen sun. She loves and hates it here, because it’s in such disrepair but it’s also more wholly her than any room she’s ever slept in, any clothing she’s ever worn.

It takes her a moment, due to the distance, but she knows the shape and tenor of her friends’ minds now. She reaches out to them, relaying everything she saw and heard today: the metal detectors, the cameras in the common areas and hallways, the shift changes, the nightly checks every thirty minutes.

None of them can transmit back, so she just has to lie down and hope they heard and know what to do. It’s the shakiest part of the whole operation, whatever she told Erik. It’s also the hardest part for her: trusting her new little family to take care of her and get the job done with no one there to supervise.

It’s terrifying. She feels helpless, and she misses Maykl more than ever.

Maybe that’s why, when she falls asleep, she dreams of him for the first time since he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know very little about inpatient mental health facilities in my own country, much less in Russia, so if anything is egregiously incorrect I apologize.
> 
> I also don't know much about Russian comics, but I did some research and Major Thunder (Mayor Grom) sounded interesting and fit what I was trying to get across, so that's what I went with!
> 
> Kevin is described as autistic in the film, so I've tried to write him as accurately and compassionately as possible (also recognizing that autism is a spectrum and not every autistic person will be the same). That being said, if you see something wrong with the way he's written, please feel free to point it out and I'll do my best to fix it!


End file.
